Why it works: Coffee and cocoa powder work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 541 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓
Mocha Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Beat the eggs until light, then gradually add the sugar while continuing to beat.
In a bowl, combine the cream of tartar, baking soda, and flour. Sift together several times.
Mix the sifted dry ingredients into the egg mixture.
Melt the butter in the boiling milk, then add to the batter along with a pinch of salt and flavoring.
For the filling, cream together the butter and powdered sugar.
Add the coffee, cocoa, and vanilla to the filling and beat thoroughly.
Spread the filling between the layers of the cake.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Coffee + cocoa powdertop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together541 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,202 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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